The Verbena Plant, part of our North African Biosphere

Every possible windowsill we have (except for one but its time is coming I am sure) is covered in Nice Husband’s plants.  His love of plants is a hobby I have learned to support. On weekends he rearranges his plants in their pots and I clean my makeup brushes so I guess we are even.

Anyway, and I know I have mentioned this before, but we have a verbena plant he brought back like a big old FOB from Algeria.  I completely took the piss because he not only brought the verbena plant on the plane in a plastic bag, he also brought back a bottle of olive oil which was obviously over regulation size.  The customs dude (in my head I imagine him as Inspector Tahar, for those of you who are initiated into the finer points of Algerian television) looked at him, and Nice Husband was all like, “I just had an operation, it is medicinal olive oil.” Try that one next time you fly.

The dude let him, his olive oil and his two foot tall verbena in a shopping bag on the plane to Geneva.  FOB city.  The plant’s “pot” was an old rusty empty olive can and the “potting soil” involved some sand and rocks and clay.

Well I stand corrected because that verbena makes the finest iced tea this side of the Mississippi river. It is about some yum.  I have boiled the leaves as a proper infusion, I have thrown teas in a cold bottle of water for perfumed water, it is simply some good stuff.

Tags : good times, Inspector Tahar, verbena